Hi folks, I haven’t yet joined TWD but am baking this one along with you anyway.

I made the almond version of the pastry dough and it was very very dry. I think that’s probably because I used unbleached flour instead of bleached — unbleached absorbs more water. I ended up adding some heavy cream to get it to stick together. Then I added to much and ended up with a soft dough that I could have rolled out…but I pressed it into my mini-tart pans anyway and froze them. Tonight I bake ’em up and see how it turns out…

I haven’t made pastry dough that often, mostly I make flaky pie dough instead. I’ve noticed that pastry doughs made with all confectioners sugar do seem to come out a bit “hard.” Using regular or superfine seems to make it more crumbly. Has anyone else noticed this? Any hints, tips, suggestions!

Just a quick word on the crust — it can be a bit crisp, especially if you press it down very hard. It’s really a cookie crust, and therefore not at all like softer, flaky pie dough, and it’s meant to be sturdy enough to stand up on its own when you take it out of the tart pan. My suggestions would be to bake it well (it tastes best when it’s well baked because the sugar caramelizes a little) and to make sure to serve it at room temperature. Cut the tart with a serrated knife using a gentle sawing motion and, if it cracks a bit or you get some crumbs, don’t worry about it. This is a dessert that’s rustic in the extreme.

I think that in the “playing around” area Dorie mentions that this tart is great with most any berry or fruit, so even if you can’t good strawberries I think you could probably try something else in season since strawberries aren’t in season in a lot of the world right now. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Lori – its probably too late now, but I di duse my ceramic tart dishes and they worked just fine…they were new to me so I couldn’t bear not to try them out! Luckily, the shells popped right out after they cooled. Good Luck!

This is probably late too.. but I made this crust by hand for the lemon tart and it didn’t work out too well. This time I used my tiny 1 1/2 cup food processor and worked in batches. It came out great- it wasn’t too hard like last time but held it’s shape just right.

I pre-assembled my tart a few hours in advance as I had guests and didn’t want to have to think about what I was doing after sitting on the deck drinking wine all evening. I think that it just softened the crust enough to avoid some of the troubles that other people had.
I loved this recipe, and I thank you guys for encouraging me to get this incredible book!